Tag Archives: Articles

I seem to write a lot of posts that talk about my misconceptions of things, and today is no different. In this article I’d like to talk about my experiences in the last 2 months, as I made the decision to try and drop some weight and generally become fitter and healthier.

This is quite a personal blog post and something I’ve been meaning to write for a couple of weeks. Whether it’s of any interest to anyone else is another thing entirely.

I’ve been over-weight for a while; I think probably it really kicked in when I left school to go to college. I stopped doing the sports I was doing at school, and also entered a college environment where in between lessons you could go to the canteen and grab some food, or nip across the road to Pizza Hut or McDonalds. Going from a very strict school environment to that was exciting, and coupled with doing less activity and really getting into programming and development, I probably ate a load more crap food and did a lot less exercise, without really realising it.

Like this:

Paris Hilton is going after a Slovenian porn site that’s illegally profiting off her good name and legendary sex tape.

The website — ParisHiltonPornVideos.com — features clips (yes, with a p) of “1 Night in Paris” … in order to attract pervs and drive traffic.

Paris has now taken legal action trying to shut the website down. She also wants the domain name transferred to her … because if anyone’s gonna make money off of Paris’ naked body it will be her … and Rick Salomon.

Every day I come across people who are in the wrong job. You do, too. They are sad, unhelpful and may seem incompetent. It’s tempting to get mad at them, but the more humane response is compassion. No one feels comfortable doing a job for which they are a bad fit.

These experiences are frustrating, which is why it’s so refreshing to come across someone who is in the right job. Glenn O’Neill, for example, is a middle school teacher who has taught social studies to all three of my kids. He is always upbeat, inspiring and insightful; the students love him, and the parents do, too. Most importantly, he seems to love what he does.

In honor of this great teacher, I created The Glenn O’Neill Test. It will help you understand if you are actually a good fit for your current job:

Do people seek you out? If others go out of their way to tap into your expertise, it’s a very good sign you are in the right position. To test this, ask yourself a hard question: do people come to you for help because they have to, or because they want to?

Do “customers” recommend you? Everyone has customers, even if you don’t call them that. Someone depends on you to do your job well. The highest compliment is when these folks praise your skills to others. When people recommend someone, they are putting their personal reputation on the line. Do others respect the job you are doing enough to risk their reputation endorsing you?

Does your job feel “just right?” It’s not too easy, but it’s not too hard, either. You generally don’t get either overwhelmed or bored. This can be a really hard balance to sustain, and it’s quite possible that the job that was perfect for you two years ago is too basic for you today.

Do you have room – and the energy – to grow? Every year should bring fresh challenges. It’s a giant warning sign when your job theoretically leaves you room to grow, but you lack the energy to tackle those “challenges.” Early in my career, I worked in an entry-level position for WGBH/Boston, the public broadcasting station. My supervisor gave me a review that said I still had plenty of room to master my basic responsibilities, but I perceived those tasks were so far below my aspirations as to not be worth my time. Her supervisor agreed, and pulled me out of the department to take on on a much more challenging position.

Are you eager to learn? People who think they know everything there is to know about their job are at risk of getting old, jaded and inflexible. The world is constantly changing, and there are always new skills and insights to learn. If you don’t feel this way, you’re in the wrong job.

Are you comfortable with your compensation? We all could use more money, but it’s critical that you are able to make things work on your current income. Life is not always fair, and sometimes society doesn’t value highly enough the job you were born to do. You may have made other life decisions – such as having four kids – that preclude you from being a good fit for a job you otherwise would love. Few things eat away at your soul like feeling that you are underpaid for the work that you do.

Does your job fit your self-image? Human beings are complicated. We don’t just need money and something worthwhile to do. Many of us need prestige, power, or respect. Some people care more about their influence than their income. Others want to be in the room when big decisions are being made. While your job won’t satisfy all your needs, it should be a good fit with who you really are.

Are you thankful? Gratitude is important. I feel bad for people who don’t know how lucky they are until they lose what they had. If you are actively thankful for your job, the odds are good that others are also thankful you are in your position.

Four of the top five highest paid executives in the U.S. work at Apple, and none of them are the company’s chief executive officer, Tim Cook.

Apple’s Bob Mansfield, Bruce Sewell, Jeff Williams and Peter Oppenheimer were all among the top corporate earners in 2012, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission data cited by Bloomberg on Monday. Most of their pay came from stock-based compensation rather than base salary.

Mansfield was the highest-paid of the group, receiving $85.5 million in 2012. The company’s senior vice president of its Technologies group announced last June that he would retire, but Mansfield was eventually convinced to stay at the company.

Reports last year claimed that Mansfield was given an “exorbitant” payout that convinced him to stay with a new two-year deal. At the time it was claimed that Cook “nearly witnessed an insurrection” after Mansfield announced his retirement and his replacement, Dan Riccio, was announced.

After Mansfield, the next highest paid on Apple’s team was Sewell, the company’s general counsel and senior vice president of Legal and Government Affairs. He earned $69 million in 2012, ranking him third among executives on the S&P 500.

Just behind him with a $68.7 million payday last year was Williams, who serves as the company’s senior vice president of Operations. Williams took that position in 2010 after more than a decade with Apple.

Finally, the fifth-highest-paid S&P 500 executive in 2012 was Oppenheimer, who serves as Apple’s chief financial officer. He took in $68.6 million in total compensation last year.

The top corporate earner was Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, who earned $96.2 million. In contrast, Apple’s CEO Cook earned $4.17 million in 2012, following the $378 million restricted stock package he netted in 2011.

(Reuters) – Google’s rivals could get the chance to ramp up pressure for tougher concessions from the search giant when they are asked, possibly as early as this week, to study its proposals for ending an EU antitrust investigation.

The world’s most popular search engine formally submitted a package of concessions to European regulators last week and three people familiar with the matter said on Monday these could be put to rivals this week in a market test.

The proposals are intended to settle an investigation dating from November 2010 and stave off a fine that could be as high as $5 billion if the company were found to have breached EU rules.

“It is possible the market test could start this week,” said one of the sources, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The spokesman for competition policy at the European Commission, Antoine Colombani, declined to comment. Google spokesman Al Verney said the company continued to work cooperatively with the EU antitrust watchdog.

Neither the Commission nor Google have given details of the proposals. But people familiar with the matter have told Reuters these could include Google labeling its own services to differentiate them from rivals’, and also imposing fewer restrictions on advertisers.

Google’s opponents have already indicated labeling will not address their concerns.

“Labeling is a non-starter and may be worse than the existing situation,” said David Wood, a lawyer for online lobbying group ICOMP, whose members include Microsoft and four other complainants.

Any concessions the regulators accept from Google will be valid for five years in Europe and be monitored by a trustee to ensure compliance, one of the sources said.

“Rival services will be shown more prominently in search results, with three links to three different search engines,” this person said.

SendHub, the Y Combinator-backed call and messaging solution targeting business users and other organizations, is today extending its platform to include support for Android. The company had previously rolled out support for iPhone almost a year ago, promising that an Android option was on the roadmap.

The company says that demand for Android support was high – they were averaging around 30 requests per day from users who wanted an Android version of SendHub.

Like the iOS version, the new app also includes support for calling and texting over Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G or cellular voice networks, support for group messages, the ability to add auto-responders and contacts, and more. In addition, it includes support for call transfers – a feature which is currently in the Apple App Store review process, expected to launch in a week or so.

The call transfer feature, like many the company has added in recent months, is designed with the needs of businesses in mind.

SendHub, for those unfamiliar, is something like a more feature-rich alternative to something like Google Voice. While previously targeting both individuals and businesses, it went after the business market more directly with the launch of its SendHub Manger at the beginning of the year. From an online platform, organizations using Manager can access a dashboard where they can create, move, or delete lines for their staff, as well as backup and export the company’s text-based communications.

Today, a third of SendHub’s 10,000 paid users are on the business plan, and its overall conversion rate is around 2 percent, the company claims. The startup has also grown to over 100,000 users total up from 60,000 in January. It saw over $35,000 in revenue in March.

“The Manager launch has shown us that businesses – and only businesses – is really where the demand is, and where we’re going to spend our time focusing,” says SendHub co-founder Ash Rust. ”We’ve added call transfer, and other calling features like simul-ring, call forwarding, and we’re about to launch auto attendant as well, so we can really provide that full-featured PBX system in the cloud for our users.”

A conference calling feature is also in the works, and further down the road, the plan is to enable even more collaboration features, including support for files, photos, and videos, through integrations with cloud storage providers like Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and others.

“We’re squarely taking on the big telecom providers – AT&T, Verizon, etc. People are looking for flexible solutions that are optimized for their mobile devices, and frankly, don’t take forever to set up,” adds SendHub’s co-founder Garrett Johnson. “We see people coming to us looking to replace their PBX, looking to replace RingCentral, or the legacy telecom providers,” he says.

The SendHub solution is currently popular among a variety of businesses, including startups like iCracked, as well as mobile workforces – especially those in health care space, as well as some more traditional brick-and-mortars. Given its start as a solution for schools, SendHub is also used heavily in the education sector, where the company has promised a free solution for teachers will always be available.